The Arabick Roots exhibition at the Royal Society helps to correct
the 'clash of civilisations' view of the history of scienceAlkali,
algebra, algorithm, alembic. Spotted the pattern? It's no
coincidence that many scientific words in English contain the
Arabic definite article. In recent years, historians and scientists
such as Jim al-Khalili have done a fantastic job of shedding some
light on the Arabic origins of modern science (Arabic here
referring to all cultures that made use of the script, rather than
just the Arab people).In particular it's the "golden age" of Arabic
science, between the 8th and 13th centuries, that gets all the
press. So while the Vikings were romping around northern Europe,
the 8th century Persian mathematician al-Khwārizmī was developing
solutions to quadratic equations. While Alfred the Great was busy
fending off those Vikings, the Arab polymath al-Kindi was
introducing Indian numerals into mathematics, and the Persian
physician al-Razi...